Carlyle says, "No person has been convicted of a capital felony since
the year 1728, when the famous Maggy Dickson was condemned and executed
for child-murder in the Grassmarket of Edinburgh, and was restored to
life in a cart on her way to Musselburgh to be buried . . . . . She kept
an ale-house in a neighbouring parish for many years after she came to
life again, which was much resorted to from curiosity." After the body
was cut down and handed over to her relatives, her revival is attributed
to the jolting of the cart, and according to Robert Chambers,--taking a
retired road to Musselburgh, "they stopped near Peffer-mill to get a
dram; and when they came out from the house to resume their journey,
Maggie was sitting up in the cart." Among the poems of Alexander
Pennecuick (who died in 1730), is one entitled "The Merry Wives of
Musselburgh's Welcome to Meg Dickson;" while another broadside, without
any date or author's name, is called "Margaret Dickson's Penitential
Confession," containing these lines referring to her conviction:--
"Who found me guilty of that barbarous crime,
And did, by law, end this wretched life of mine;
But God .
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